Zogby: New Corbett Budget Will Not Have "Gimmicks" Of The Past.

Pennsylvania Faces ...
... “unprecedented” fiscal challenges that Gov. Tom Corbett will
address next week in a “reasonable responsible” budget that includes “big spending cuts,” the administration’s top budget czar told a gathering of state business leaders this afternoon.

In a 26-minute speech to the Pennsylvania Press Club that steered well clear of any specifics, state Budget Secretary Charles Zogby nonetheless acknowledged that there are areas of the spending plan -- such as corrections, Medicaid and education -- that will have to be filled in because of the loss of $2 billion in federal stimulus money next year.

But with the state facing a budget deficit of $4 billion for the fiscal year that starts on July 1 and state spending that has increased by 37 percent since 2002, Zogby said “the day of reckoning had arrived.”

In what appeared to be a clear shot at the administration of Democrat Ed Rendell, Zogby said the use of one-time revenue sources and other accounting tricks to balance the books had gone on long enough.

“No more gimmicks and no more use one one-time sources,” said Zogby, who served as a top policy adviser and, later as secretary of education under former GOP Govs Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker. “We will make difficult choices to live within our means.”

During his speech, Zogby repeatedly deferred to Corbett when he was asked about the nuts and bolts of the 2011-2012 spending plan that the governor will present to a joint session of the state House and Senate on March 8. But he did offer some insights into the policy decisions that are driving the new administration as it puts together its first budget.

Zogby repeated the administration’s well-worn line that it will not raise taxes or fees to balance the books. But he left it to the governor to answer an audience member’s question about whether the administration might seek to broaden the state’s tax base through other means.

“We’re not in a deficit because of a revenue problem,” he said. “We have a spending problem. Expenditures outpaced revenues.”

The budget czar also expanded on Corbett’s well-documented support for privatizing Pennsylvania’s state-owned liquor stores, suggesting that there could be other areas of state government that could be better managed by private interests.
“As a state, we need to think long and hard about those areas of activity we need to be in,” he said.

Referring directly to the liquor stores, Zogby mused on whether having the state run retail wine and spirits sales were “consistent with the mission … and if taxpayers might benefit from some other ways of doing business and if that applies to other areas of state government.”